Pumpkin time

DH and I were sitting on the couch and chatting, cheese and biscuits on the coffee table in front of us, sipping hot drinks and catching up on the day, actually the whole week, it’s been a bit intense, lately – not much time to talk.

I had come home from work, totally fruited, at about 745pm and DH heated up my dinner and served it to me on the couch (home made pizza – yum!) and at first I didn’t want to do anything but watch the box and chill out. What’s that Dr Who phrase? ‘Pizza, booze, telly’ that’s where I was at first.

But after a little blob time I was ready to surface and we both decided to turn off the box and connect with each other. We talked about the day – how his work went, how mine went, interesting things that happened, interesting things people said. Then we started talking about our plans for the future, little bits and pieces, lovely conversation.

You see, I need a lot of sleep. About 9 1/2 hours a night does me beautifully. I am probably more of a morning person than an evening person but I’m not the kind of morning person who wakes at 5am refreshed and happy and ready tostart the day. No-siree-bob. I am the kind of morning person who wakes very slowly and becomes an intelligent being by drinking a cup of coffee in bed. I am so incredibly privileged to have a husband who is happy to get up in the morning and bring me a cup of coffee in bed. Perhaps it’s because I’m just totally useless without it.

(That reminds me of the morning DH accidentally made me a decaf coffee for my morning cup. I drifted around the house moaning, ‘It’s not working. Why is the coffee not working?’ for a couple of hours until we found out what went wrong. Then we fixed it and my day started.)

And I am definitely not an evening person. At around 930pm I start to shut down. I can continue to act intelligently but only with great effort. My body curls up, my mind slows down and I’m ready to read a little and then sleep. I turn into a pumpkin. 930 is pumpkin time.

This makes evening entertaining a little bit difficult at times. We do not have parties that keep going until 2am. We don’t have those comfortable evenings where everyone settles in and drinks 3 bottles of wine. I would like to have them but I just can’t keep going. I have even been known to throw guests out of the house. ‘Ok, I’m kicking you out now!’ I say, in the nicest possible way, ‘I need to go to bed’

When my siblings were here recently, we were trying to make the most of the time together. The problem was that I was also working full time so we had to snatch every little minute that we could to see each other. Add to that the fact that they were also trying to make the most of time with Mum and Dad and some evenings got a little late. I warned them that pumpkin time was 930pm but they themselves have a pumpkin time that is much more in line with Cindarella (they may even be nocturnal, I don’t know, I haven’t stayed up to find out). They put up with me very nicely – that’s the good thing about siblings, they still love you even when you turn orange and make no sense.

So that’s me, someone who needs a lot of sleep, who turns into a pumpkin at 930 precisely. And that is why I’m going to finish this post, post it, and go to bed. Goodnight all!